Posted by John Merchant on May 25, 2009 at 18:06:30:
If I were advising the Defendant in this situation (am I? Are you the D?) I’d tell him to file his own Motion to Dismiss for the Plaintiff’s failure to follow the Cal Bar’s form, along with Defendant’s Oriainal Answer containing the D’s defenses to the action.
If the Court doesn’t dismiss the action because of the failure of the P to follow the form exactly, then the court would hear the case and the D’s defenses to the action.
I’ve seen lawsuit “Answers” done numerous times “Pro Se” by Defendant for himself, with no lawyer and generally speaking courts are very lenient with those no-lawyer Defendants.
As a practical matter often the court is in effect acting to defend those Ds itself…which lawyers hate but have to live with
CalBar’s Mandatory Fee Arbitration center claimed that if in a billing dispute wherein the attorney is threatening to file suit to collect on a disputed amount owing, the attorney MUST serve the client with the official “State Bar Approved Form Rev. April 1, 2007” form. If not the case will be summarily dismissed pursuant to Business & Professional code # 6201.A.
The form supplied by the attorney in question is very similar to the “official” form, but it is NOT denoted at the bottom right hand corner that it is indeed the official State Bar Approved Form, in addition there are minor omissions of information such as attorney name, phone contact to the local arbitration program, etc.
In closing the State Bar’s Mandatory Fee Arbitration Center emphatically states that the case must be dismissed because of this minor technical flaw.
Does anyone here have actual experience in a matter similar to this?